October, 2006

Fred R. Coulter, Minister

October 18, 2006

Dear Brethren,

We just returned from the Feast of Tabernacles. I went to Goshen, Indiana; Waco, Texas and Hollister, California. All the brethren had a wonderful feast in these areas, and from the few preliminary reports we have received, so did all the other feast sites. When we get the all reports and letters from the brethren about the feast, we will pass them on to you in my next letter.

Compact Disc to Replace Cassettes

The world of audio cassettes is going the way of the old eight-rack audio recorders and players, and the “Beta” format video tapes. The technology of compact disks, or CD’s has almost completely taken over the use of audio cassettes as the recording standard for music and audio. Within 18 months to 2 years, cassettes will be completely obsolete. Here are a few statistics to show you what is happening.

Audio cassettes were introduced in USA 1962 and sold 2-3 million. Their use peaked in 1989. We do not have the statistics available for the USA, but that year in the United Kingdom they sold 830 million. Then last year only 900,000 were sold, representing a 90% decrease, which is undoubtedly true for the entire world.

CD’s were introduced in the USA in the spring of 1983, and 800,000 were sold. Seven years later in 1990, 288 million were sold in the USA and nearly a billion worldwide. In 2004, 30 billion were sold worldwide! As a result audio cassettes and cassette players are being phased out every where. They are getting harder and harder to buy.

A technician at Long’s Electronics, the largest supplier of cassette recording equipment in the United States, reported Telex, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cassette duplicating equipment, has stopped making them. So Long’s bought a two year supply of the machines and repair parts in order to take care of their current customers. But they plan on phasing out audio cassettes and cassette equipment within two years and no more than three years.

For over 23 years, the CBCG has purchased cassettes from Enas Cassette World. They have now changed their name to Enas Media because they are making very few cassettes and are almost completely into CD and DVD production. When I visited them in August to see their facilities, they told me that they likewise would phase out all cassette production within 2 years or less. They also mentioned that when that happens then many of their remaining customers will rush to switch over to CD’s, and they will have to get at the end of the line.

Over two years ago, we tried a pilot CD duplication program. We duplicated 25 CD’s a week and mailed them out on a trial basis. With this program we learned a great deal about DC’s and saw that it would not be possible to duplicate them ourselves. Most importantly, we learned that computer recorded CD’s are fragile. They are easy to scratch, can warp if left in a hot car and easily broken in the mail.

This past summer, we began to investigate how we could switch to CD’s from audio cassettes. We located a major CD manufacturing company, CD Net near Newport Beach in southern California. We visited their facilities and saw the special machinery and process used in making CD’s. When CD’s are made they are not duplicated like a computer does. The process for manufacturing CD’s is called replication, not duplication. From a master CD that we send them, they a glass master. Then this replicates the sound—voice or music—in a high quality digital format. The glass master is used to impress the plastic underside of the CD. Then it is pressed in a heat process that fuses the top and bottom of the CD with the recorded material between. Then a label is printed on each CD. When a CD is replicated in this manner it is very hard and durable. We will have some of our CD’s manufactured at CD Net and some at Enas Media.

In this mailing, you have the first trial CD—Comfort and Hope. Enas Media produced this one. We will follow it up with another one next month from CD Net. If every thing goes well, we plan on converting over to CD’s in January 2007. Then we will no longer mail out any cassettes for the weekly and biweekly mailings. If you desire cassettes, then we suggest that you purchase a CD player that can also duplicate a cassette for you.

We have recorded this trial CD in what is called “wave format.” This means that it can be played on any CD player. A CD is not like a cassette that you can start and stop without losing your place on the tape. With a CD, if you desire to stop and then continue on again, you must push the pause button—do not push the stop button, as it will go back to the beginning again when you push play. Whenever someone desires to make a comment while listening to a CD, push the pause button only—to continue push the play button. Or, if you desire to reverse it to re-listen to some thing, then push pause button and then push the reverse button. When you are ready to play again and push the play button and it will begin playing at the point you reversed to. Likewise with going forward, you push the pause button, go forward to where you want. Then push the play button and it will continue.

If you need to purchase a CD player, please make sure you buy one that plays both the “Wave” and “MPC” formats. It will be necessary to have a player that plays both formats, because when we convert our extended series from cassettes to CD’s we will use the MPC format. With this format we will be able to get as many as 10 sermons on a single CD. (At the present time some of our series have more than 40 tapes.) During the coming year we will be converting these extended series to MPC format. At the present time, all the sermons on our websites are formatted in MPC for easy downloading into your computer.

Brethren, thank you for all your love, prayers and continued support through your tithes and offerings. We are praying for you every day for God’s love, grace and blessings to be upon you and all that you do.

With love in Christ Jesus,

Fred R. Coulter

FRC

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